As reported at Comicbook.com, apparently part of the deal in Marvel FINALLY reprinting the original Alan Moore Miraclemans is that they not mention that Alan Moore had anything to do with it. The press releases have been Moore-free and the solicitations yesterday mentioned only a secretive Original Writer:

The new versions are being relettered, so it’s conceivable Moore could be written out entirely, although they would be kind of…lame, even if its his own wishes. I’ll hang on to my original editions if I ever find them in my storage unit.

It’s a cunning ploy to preserve his reputation when new readers discover that his MM work is actually rather scrappy and embarrassing stuff from the very start of his career and not the towering equal to ‘Watchmen’ and ‘From Hell’ that they’re all expecting.

It might be more a case of Moore not wanting to do business with Marvel than anything else. He might not be able to prevent Marvel from reprinting the material, but letting Marvel use his name in promotions would implicitly endorse the reprinting of it.

It’s a cunning ploy to preserve his reputation when new readers discover that his MM work is actually rather scrappy and embarrassing stuff from the very start of his career and not the towering equal to ‘Watchmen’ and ‘From Hell’ that they’re all expecting.

If you say so. I read Miracleman a few years ago after having already read Watchmen and, like Grant Morrison, I think it’s superior to Watchmen. Maybe Watchmen is better as “novel,” but Miracleman I find to be the better commentary on what a super-hero in real life would be like. MM is a better sci-fi story too.

That is an interesting interpretation, especially seeing how Moore has been fighting tooth and nail with DC to remove his name from anything of his they publish. To me, it seems more like he just doesn’t want his name on work published by the Big Two, but I could be wrong.

I dunno…I really don’t get why people hate Moore so much. I mean, he kinda just writes his books and that’s about it. If people ask him for his opinion, he gives it. What’s wrong with that?

@Molnek, as far as I can tell Gaiman wrote later scripts knowing the name had changed and where the word “miracle” was important to the story. Presumably this also brands the Moore and Gaiman stuff as a special separate thing, freeing up “Marvelman” for any future use of the character.

@jacob, I’m not surprised. They tried to mend fences early in Quesada’s tenure with the Captain Britain reprints, but screwed it up then.

This is finally being reprinted? Great! I was too late to the party to pick it up when it first came out. I will try to keep my expectations in check, but I’m thrilled to read anything Alan Moore comes up with. As far as not wanting his name on it, I can guess Alan just doesn’t want Marvel to make money off his name, as someone else stated. We can all make theories as to why Moore is like this, but none of us have been through what he has. By the way, where’s Jerusalem?

Moore has said that he’s embarrassed by the work and feels that, like “Watchmen,” it changed the comics industry for the worse. I think that’s not entirely untrue but it’s still quite a good (if very dark) story, particularly because of his unflinching willingness to deal with the consequences of making, big, huge, irreversible choices for his character—something that will never become trendy as long as superhero IP is just considered a money farm. I don’t think he has a particular problem with Marvel anymore and I think he and Joe Q have been in touch and have his permission to do the reprints, or they wouldn’t do them. In fact, the deletion of his name suggests exactly that—it’s such a weird, respectful curtsy to Moore’s craziest stipulation over the course of the legal wrangling that it’s almost a seal of approval.

Can’t wait until people remember that issues 10-16 are each 16 pages long…

Alan Moore, as per reports from this very site, agreed to allow his MM work to be reprinted out of regard for Mick Anglo, the original creator, and his family. Again – this has been reported here, folks – Moore is not throwing a tantrum, or being wayward, or acting hypocritical… or being a dick. Marvel’s record with creators is abominable. Moore certainly would have been able to prevent Marvel from reprinting his material, but he didn’t, because he wanted to honor Mick. My own reading is that Moore also wanted to allow the work to finally come out in an a way that escaped the “poison chalice” legacy.

Moore is just Moore. Why people whine about his decisions regarding credit is beyond sense. While he can certainly be called quirky, his standards for comic book writing are being met by only a few writers working today. Creative individuals today would love to be able to create comics at such an influential level. The best thing from this is that the work of Miracleman will be discovered by a new potential audience, and I hope he benefits from it somehow.

Moore is such a dick he doesn’t sell his name to Marvel so they can pimp him or come out for Before Watchmen. He doesn’t go on the View and make nice with Whoopi or come on the Beat and apologize for everything DC does. He is totally cheapening the industry right? We would be better off without him. Anyway off to read Harely Quinn she so extreme.

The fact that Alan Moore gets attacked for asking to have his name taken off a piece of work and donating all the money for the first printing to the original creator, Mick Anglo, just goes to show how morally bankrupt a great deal of comics and superheroes fans actually are.

It’s fine if someone chooses to not believe in or have integrity or ethics in business anymore, but I wish people would stop decry anyone who tries to anyway.

I love the hate from the ignorant fanboys whenever Moore’s name or actions are mentioned. If anything sullies the plans of their precious Marvel or DC, they must feel the wrath of the angry trolling fanboys!

To me, the most interesting bit in the series is the suggestion that a person of adolescent urges and emotional development, when given great power and no oversight, might become a capricious, despotic sociopath drunk on their own relative “godhood”. I think this model of personality disorder — Johnny Bates Syndrome, if you will — maps very closely with the real world, especially among certain comics industry executives and creators in current and past history.

Moore does what he wants, I don’t get too excited about it anymore. I am a little curious as to why. It might be, as has been suggested, that he doesn’t want Marvel to be able to use his name for marketing; but his collaborators and successors on the book are big names that Marvel can sell almost as well. It might be, as has been suggested (but I doubt), that Moore doesn’t want his name on a product that he might be less than enthusiastic about these days; but most of the people who will buy the reprints already know who wrote what and the ones who don’t can find out after spending about five minuets on Google. Maybe this is a metaphorical grenade thrown into the room and Moore is sitting back and enjoying the chaos it causes in parts of the comic book world.

I could be wrong (Lord knows, I usually am….), but I assumed that this is a case of Moore actually walking the walk: he doesn’t want anything to do with the Big Two, hence the refusal of credit. Of course, as Doug points out, part of this stance is a refusal on Moore’s part to use his name for marketing purposes, which, let’s face it, they WOULD do; any promotion department worth a damn would be foolish not to, given the right. Love him or hate him, the name Alan Moore still carries weight, especially within the realm of Superheroes. “From the Man who gave you Watchman,” and all that jazz.

Miracleman/Marvelman is definitely early Moore, and there are some long, boring, Scott Snyder-ish purple prose stuff in the early issues. But before long Moore really comes into his own. Even with the sorta rough early issues, the series was high quality.

It’s easily THE crucial series in the development of dark/grim/super-heroes-as-real-people comic of the ’80s. Sure, Watchmen did it better, in a more succinct, self-perfected way. But the crucial innovation that Alan Moore performed upon “the superhero” happened in Miracleman. It long sense became standard practice to juxtapose superheroes with “the superman”, with all of its dark connotations. But it was a total revolution in how the most important theme in the history of the medium was looked at. And it happened in Miracleman #1.

As for why this is being called “Miracleman”, my guess is that most of the later issues were only EVER published as “Miracleman” by Eclipse, so possibly there’s some sort of legal stipulation there. Maybe Moore himself would have the ability to stop the reprints IF Marvel was going to reconstrue them to come out under another title. Also, I mean, think about it: A lot of those issues say “Miracleman” right in Moore’s scripts and in the lettering. So, Marvel would have to literally change Moore’s script in order to publish these as “Marvelman”. No way Moore would go along with that. I assume he’d have a decent reason to file a lawsuit if they were actually changing his scripts to bring the work out under another title.

Also, if they ever want to introduce the character into 616 continuity, they could just call him Marvelman and thereby eschew the side/bubble continuity of Moore’s storyline.

Lastly, despite what we savvy internet obsessives know by heart, the fact is that for decades now the myth of this lost series was built up under the Miracleman banner. That’s the title that 95% of the target audience associates with the work.

It makes sense to request his name be removed from solicitations, but not to have his name removed from the book altogether. If he started the series, he started the series. That’s just history, no point in trying to rewrite it.

I hope they do the whole run leading up to Gaiman issues (which apparently will be new and improved, but in good ways). I find it amusing that it will likely be credited “by the Original Writer.” At least the artists will be mentioned, and the art was very good except for Chuck Austen. The thing is, a concept like Miracleman has grown beyond its creator at this point, and is not creator owned. I don’t bother defending or condemning Moore; he’s got too many fanboys on both sides already.

I remember reading these when they first came out & it was a revelation.
First time I had ever seen such dark material – superb.
As for the missing author credit; I get the feeling he’s embarrassed by this juvenile stuff & wants nothing to do with it.
That’s a shame considering he’s still working in medium with the League of Ext. Gentlemen; an interesting experiment which I find hard to warm to. A certain amount of intellectual masturbation reusing literary characters, are they materially different from the superheroes he so openly disdains. A conundrum for sure – but that’s Moore for you.